


Kynan's Lesson

by lhawes92



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 18:45:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8256437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lhawes92/pseuds/lhawes92
Summary: Kynan Leore, who venerated Vox Machina when he met them at Greyskull Keep, meets them months later, though his reception is even colder than previously. Spoilers for episodes 68 and 69 of Critical Role.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this story came to me after watching episode 68 of Critical Role and is set immediately after its end. It has since been updated to fit into the events of episode 69. Spoilers from both episodes 68 and 69.

The party left the seared clearing and struck out into the jungle, though none could summon any more enthusiasm for adventure. Vax, Vex and Keyleth huddled close together as they walked supporting each other's battered bodies, made weaker still by the emotional pain. Scanlan led the party, preparing to open the door to his magical mansion once they were satisfied that they were far enough away from the crater. For once in all the time the group had been together, he walked silent and dumbstruck. The cheer that Vox Machina ordinarily relied on him for was gone, as the three half-elves dejectedly dragged their heels, and as behind them, Grog bore the still and peaceful body of Percy in his numb arms.  
At the very back of the party was Kynan Leore, equally as silent as the rest of the group. It was difficult to believe what had transpired in the past half hour. Hell, it was difficult to believe what had transpired for the past few months. If things had ended differently back at the clearing, he might have had a chance to say what was going through his mind, why he felt compelled to attack Vox Machina and what Ripley had done to make him do so. His heroes exchanged no words, nothing but occasional gasps of physical pain and more frequent, tearful groans of mental torment. They are ignoring me again, Kynan thought. He caught himself thinking this and tried to shake it, but thoughts that had been insidious enough to drive him to attack Percy's party a few minutes ago were not going to be dispelled quite so easily.  
Scanlan opened the portal and one by one, the party stepped through into the alternate plane. Kynan heard some hasted explanations of the ethereal servants and that he shouldn’t worry about them, but thereafter he once again escaped their attention. None of them could focus on anything infact. If anyone was not looking at the ground avoiding eye contact with everyone else, they were looking at Percy, laid out across the dining room table, his arms hanging limply off the sides, looking relaxed, at peace even.  
None of the party wanted to go to their own rooms. Instead they lingered in the hallway, concerned that sooner or later the others might leave. Vax suggested they all stay together for tonight, and the party agreed. The servants floated off to each corner of the mansion and returned with an array of blankets and sheets, as the party gradually started to force words through their tears, eventually agreeing that Percy needed to return to Whitestone. That was where Pike was, and if that failed, it was also where Cassandra and the de Rolo family were. Kynan sat away from the others, his knees drawn up to either side of his head and the blanket placed over him as he rocked back and forth slightly.  
The tears died away as they laid down to rest and the six adventurers sat in silence for much longer until they started to fall asleep. Vex could not, however. She was far too absorbed in her own thoughts. They raced, struggling to come to terms with everything happening all at once. What if Pike can’t save Percy? What if something has happened to Whitestone while we were gone? What if the guns Ripley had been selling are in the sort of hands that Percy worried about? And what did the cloud of darkness that enveloped Percy as he fell mean?  
Amidst all of these worries, however after a time Vex realised that Kynan was not asleep either. Apart from rocking on his heels as he sat curled up near the exit from the mansion, he had not moved for hours. Most of his face was buried in his arms crossed over his knees, but he stared at the door frame that lead to the dining hall. He couldn’t see anything beyond from his vantage point, but he knew Percy was in there, in a room separate from his comrades. The look in his eyes told Vex that he was taking the day’s events as hard as the rest of them. She slowly got up from under her mass of blankets and walked over to him.  
"Kynan?" she whispered.  
Kynan looked up at her, his eyes wide and still.  
"Could you come with me for a minute?" Kynan stared into space for a moment longer, before he stretched himself out and got to his feet. Vex turned and walked up the spiral staircase that followed the back wall of the room. He crept up behind her, followed her to one of the rooms on the landing and stepped inside as she beckoned him to do so.  
Inside he was met with a dimly candle-lit room with immaculate white walls, adorned with all manner of finery. The floor was covered in plain, but incredibly soft carpet, tapestries hung from the walls and a number of landscape paintings depicting mountainous terrain and a city Kynan had never seen before were hung up between them. A four-poster bed was positioned against one wall, an ornate wardrobe in an opposite corner and three chairs, one with noticeably deeper upholstery, were stood by the bed. Vex was in the corner of the room furthest from the door, her back to Kynan, standing at a desk with two classical portraits, one of a finely dressed man and one of an equally well dressed woman, hanging above it in gilded frames. Kynan walked closer to Vex and looked at the papers on the desk, fine pencil drawings of all manner of things. Judging from the frequent straight lines and numbers scattered about them, Kynan figured they were mostly technical in nature, though Vex was resting an outstretched hand on one of them that instead was covered in faces. Just basic bust portraits, of whom Kynan could not tell at this distance. One seemed much larger than the others, two particularly small, and one was about the same size as the remaining three, but was reptilian in appearance. Vex abruptly turned around and Kynan’s eyes shot up from the sheets of paper to meet her face.  
“Why don’t you take a seat,” she said and walked back from the desk to the chairs by the bed. She sat in one of the simpler ones and waited. Kynan looked briefly at the larger chair, which had an open book at its foot, but then went to sit in the other smaller one. He settled himself and waited for Vex to speak. If she was feeling any distress, she was doing a good job of fighting back any signs of it.  
"How did you get here, to Glintshore?" she asked in a voice only slightly louder than the one she used downstairs.  
Kynan worked his way back through his memories of the past year for a suitable place to start. He remembered the first time he saw Vex, with several other members of Vox Machina outside Greyskull Keep in Whitestone. He thought back on the evasive way she spoke, making excuses before he could even make his case. He could recall Percy's quiet observation and judging of him. Percy stood shoulder to shoulder with the other heroes as Kynan tried to explain why he needed to travel with them, and his face was unmoved as Kynan felt a heavy blow to the back of the head.  
"Well, I was embarrassed after I met you all in Emon- no, that’s not it, it was humiliating, actually, and I wanted to be better, I'd said to myself that morning I was going to be stronger from then on, and after being knocked out in one hit by you guys I was going to make sure of it. So I left town and found my way…"  
"No, Kynan," Vex interrupted him. "That's not what I meant to ask. I mean how did you get to be with her?"  
Kynan halted at this. He had been so absorbed with the whole decision of leaving home to make something of himself and whether this had been a good idea that he hadn't yet thought about the individual events in the journey that brought him to Glintshore Isle. He still felt there were more important things to talk about now, but sitting across from Vex'ahlia, he realised that the only person who Ripley had brought to the island and was still alive was him, and he was now facing one of those responsible for that fact. He began carefully choosing his words.  
"She turned up in Kymal a week or two before Winter's Crest last year. Found her way to an inn where I was with some people I had travelled from Emon with and we met her. She wouldn't say what she wanted them for, but she was asking about hiring some guards to travel with her. She said she'd pay well and make sure there was always loot to be got, wherever she went."  
"And you thought you would tag along?" Vex asked. Her tone was growing sharper.  
"Well, not exactly, she asked for me to join her." Vex straightened up and narrowed her eyes ever so slightly. "I didn’t know if I should, but she asked me specifically, and the others I was with volunteered to come with us after that."  
"Why did she want you with her?" Vex was beginning to show signs of being upset again, but it was not the same as before. Her emotion was a lot more focused now as she listened further. Kynan could see it and knew it was likely to get even more so before the night was over.  
"I mentioned I was from Emon, that was where I was last Winter’s Crest. She started on about how you were celebrated by the city then and if I remembered you. I said I did, and that I had met you guys briefly. I didn’t get why she cared at the time."  
Kynan tilted his head down to avoid looking at Vex's intense stare. "What else did she ask about us?" she said, her voice beginning to quiver. "What else did you tell her?"  
"Just the stories everyone in Emon knew, how you saved the sovereign and his family, that you killed a spy on the high council, what you looked like when I met you, that you had just got back from Vasselheim, stuff like that." The word "Vasselheim" made Vex sit up more, but Kynan continued.  
"We headed out to some spots in Tal'dorei and Othanzia to lose her tail, picked up some unwanted valuables on the road and were still in Stillben when we heard about the dragons in Emon. Half the guys I had travelled with split then, but I stayed."  
"Why?" Vex asked.  
Kynan answered calmly. "There was nothing for me back there. In Emon I was a butcher's kid. Out on the road I was getting stronger. And then Anna started talking about these artefacts of power and I knew I wanted to look for them, not to be weak any more. It seemed like she was really beginning to trust me." His voice started trembling. “And I knew you were there. Anna made me listen to something you were saying about the dragons. You were responsible and you were still there, watching it happen.”  
Vex did not linger long enough on that remark for Kynan tell what her internal reaction was. "Artefact of power," she said instead. “You mean the Vestiges.” Kynan briefly looked at Vex again.  
“The cloak and the dagger, that was it” he muttered, before he clammed up under the intensity of her glare.  
"Do you have one of these too, then?" Vex asked. From inside her tunic she pulled out a gun and held it in front of Kynan. Ripley’s own Pepperbox. He had watched the party pick through the remains of the battle for all the guns and store them away. He had thought they were all still in the bag, he certainly had not seen anyone get one out.  
"I never had one of my own, no. I thought you guys were saying they were too dangerous to keep?"  
“Have you ever used one?” Vex continued, ignoring his question.  
“Yes,” Kynan answered matter-of-factly.  
What followed was a long, distressingly silent interval, while Kynan stared at the floor in shame and frustration. Vex sat unmoving, her attention fixed on Kynan and the gun resting in her lap. The only sounds to be heard were the rest of Vox Machina uneasily shifting in their sleep in the foyer beneath them. Finally, Vex leaned forward and down until she had caught Kynan’s gaze again.  
“Your home, Emon, is in ruins,” she said. “Westruun has been ruined, Draconia has been ruined, every other city in Exandria is afraid that they’ll be next. We would never bring this on anyone if we could have stopped it. Do you understand me?” Kynan nodded without looking up. “We were worried someone used us to free them. And we’ve been trying to stop them ever since. We’ve been trying to save as many people as we can from those dragons.” Her voice took on an extraordinary assertiveness as she spoke. “That’s why we went looking for the Vestiges, because that was the only way we would stand a chance against them. That’s the only way Emon stands a chance of ever rebuilding. We wanted to live up to who you thought we were when we met back in Emon. We’ve not been doing this to make ourselves strong, but that’s exactly what you’ve been doing.”  
Kynan’s hands dropped into his lap, gradually curling up out of Vex’s view. “You don’t understand,” he hissed, “I needed it.”  
“And what have you done with it? Attack us and then attack your boss when the tide started to turn,” Vex snapped at him. “We were worried that we had been used, if only you had figured that out yourself. You know, you wanted to be a hero, but I’m not seeing that. I’m seeing a boy with a toy who’s suddenly developed a power complex.  
Kynan tightened his fists again, the muscles in his arms straining slightly more. “And none of you have?”  
“Maybe we have had,” Vex replied. “We were all young once, and we all learned what they did to us, and to each other. But you know what, maybe we could have let you keep it, seeing as you’re supposed to be helping now, you know how to use it. But you know about these too.” She picked up the gun again and held it in her open level palm. “Do you have any real idea what this is?”  
Kynan looked up at the gun in front of him, with all the signs of confused irritation flashing across his face. Vex did not allow him to answer. “These are worse than Vestiges,” she said. “The chance of these getting out into the world has been looming over us for years. With the damage these can do, they basically are Vestiges. And you and your merry band of adventurers have been selling them to any numbskull with a purse big enough to match their greed. How many of them have you sold?”  
“I didn’t-” Kynan started.  
“How many have you sold?” Vex repeated herself louder and closed her hand around the handle of the gun.  
“I don’t know!” Kynan said. “Three or four in Vasselheim, another three or four in Ank’harel maybe?”  
“Eight,” Vex muttered. “Eight at least, and there’ll soon be more, once they start making copies.” Her empty hand rubbed her eyes vigorously for a few seconds until she opened them again, now slightly bloodshot. “And I thought you had a power complex, just imagine what they’re all like. What happens when every thief in Ank’harel has one? What happens when there’s a whole group of them wandering through Vasselheim taking what they want?”  
Kynan had now curled one fist around the other and was wringing his hands together and digging his nails into them. With each sentence Vex’s voice rose in volume and Kynan shrank back into his chair, his eyes firmly shut and he could feel every biting remark that Vex made. “That’s your doing, Kynan. Those vestiges of machines are scattered across the world, and anyone who’s got one has all they need to force whatever they want on anyone else. And you and your travelling companions have done that.”  
“You don’t know they’d do that.” Kynan could feel his rage building within his ribcage, an urge to just shut Vex up. It wasn’t fair, what she was saying. That’s not what he ever wanted. He was determined not to be cowed by the people who ignored him when he asked for help in Emon a year ago, but each line Vex spoke rang true, or at least true enough that he could not help but be taken aback by it. “You have no idea what they would do.”  
“Then put my mind at ease, Kynan. Tell me that although you abandoned your home to burn, you helped the woman who killed Percy’s family, and you then got Percy killed, tell me that’s never going to happen to anyone else!” The last few hoarsely shouted words made Kynan flinch. He waited for a noise of someone downstairs stirring, as someone had to have heard Vex then, but it never came. Nor did Kynan answer. He didn’t know, and so he just sat uncomfortably in his chair, fidgeting awkwardly.  
“Well done, Kynan,” she said, “you now have my attention.”  
Kynan felt a tremor around his eyes as though a tear were about to come out. He moved to hide it by raising both hands to his mouth and a finger from each to scratch the corner of each eye. He breathed heavily into his hand and finally took his gaze away from his feet to watch Vex as she calmly, without a trace of emotion any more, placed the gun she was holding on the third chair. She straightened up and looked Kynan directly in the eyes. He turned his head away from her and towards the gun.  
“You know whose chair that is?” she asked, but she didn’t leave Kynan any time to reply. “He’s been chasing her for years, ever since she slaughtered his family. And ever since he tracked her down the first time, she’s been making these butcher’s tools just to get under his skin. He’s been trying to make things right. And you made the problem worse, and then you stopped him.”  
Kynan lowered his hands from his face. The streams of tears glinted from the low light in the room and framed his upper lip, shaking almost violently with guilt. Vex too had tears tumbling down one side of her face.  
“There’s the sword you lived by, Kynan.” She gestured to the gun as she spoke, spluttering out the words, clearly unable to contain her own rage. She furrowed her brows and lips, composed herself and waited silently in her chair.  
Kynan’s chin fell to his chest and he heaved a long, loud sob. It took him a moment longer to turn towards Percy’s armchair and begin reaching out for the gun. His hand limply fell on it but did not grab it.  
“I’m sorry,” Kynan said, still only looking at the chair. “I didn’t realise. I fell for everything she told me about you, about her.” He was about to continue, but the tension in Vex’s face was only growing greater. It didn’t matter, Kynan realised. He might not have known then what was right, but there was no denying it now. He slammed his eyes shut, curled his fingers around the handle of the revolver, picked it up and raised it to his temple. All he could hear was the roaring thump of his heart, beating faster than he could count. He steadied his breathing for a minute more, before gradually opening his eyes, taking one final look at Vex’ahlia, her hair looking thinner than normal, the centre of her face around the lips and nose surrounded by the streams of single tears and her eyes looking wide and patient.  
Kynan shut his eyes once more, straightened his back, adjusted his grip on the pistol and let out one long exhalation.  
“Wait-”  
«Click»  
The room was silent again, no breathing, no heartbeats, not even the faintest of sounds could be heard. Vex stopped holding back the tears once she had spoken, though she did not cry audibly. She simply looked on at Kynan as he shook with guilt, his head directly in front of a landscape of the Alabaster Sierras that Vex had previously failed to notice. He just sat there, not moving voluntarily at all besides his trembling. His neck craned backwards, his eyes were sealed shut and the gun remained planted by his skull. Vex curled her lips, then mouthed words without anything escaping. She halted and reasserted command over her voice, before speaking as flatly and without emotion as she could.  
“I forgive you.”  
She got up out of her chair, snatched the gun from Kynan’s weak hand and marched out of the room, slamming the door as she left. That deafening sound brought Kynan out of his stupor and he looked about the dimly lit room as it had been left. He steadily raised himself up out of his chair, still quietly crying and shivering, leaning on it all the while and caught a glimpse of the sheet on Percy’s desk that he had noticed earlier. One face was that of Vex, in far greater detail than the others, which Kynan eventually realised belonged to the other members of Vox Machina.  
He hobbled out of the room, nearly tripping and falling on the door. Slowly easing it open, keeping his weight on the handle and another wall, he slipped through on to the landing. He came down the stairs towards the foyer below, but stopped once he could see the first people. Vax’ildan was now sat up and slouching against a wall still under his blankets, staring first at the revolver in his hand, the chambers unlocked from position and rotating idly, then up at Kynan on the stairs above him. His other hand caressed Vex’s head. She was lying on her side next to him, her cheek bathed in tears and whispering just loudly enough for Kynan to hear in the echoing room.  
“That’s what he said, I forgive you. That’s the last thing I heard him say.”

Lewis Hawes


End file.
